Tommy Robinson jailed for 18 months for contempt of court after repeating false allegations about refugee

The 41-year-old, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, appeared at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday, October 28 where he pleaded guilty to 10 breaches of a High Court order that was introduced in 2021. The order prohibits Robinson from repeating false allegations about a Syrian refugee who successfully sued him in 2021 over the claims.

The Solicitor General accused Robinson of committing two breaches of the High Court order “knowingly” on two separate occasions. Aidan Eardley KC, for the Solicitor General, accused Robinson of ”thumbing his nose at the court” and “undermining” the law, but told the court that a “resolution” had been reached over the allegations with Robinson confirming that he accepted the breaches when asked in court.

Sentencing him, Mr Justice Johnson told Robinson: “It was a planned, deliberate, direct, flagrant breach of the court’s orders. Nobody is above the law. Nobody can pick and choose which injunctions they obey and those they do not. It is in the interests of the whole community that injunctions are obeyed.”

The allegations concern two incidents in which Robinson “published, caused, authorised or procured” a film which included a false allegation about a Syrian refugee. The film, titled ‘Silenced’ and created by Robinson, is still pinned to the top of his X (formerly Twitter) account, and was also screened during a demonstration in Trafalgar Square earlier this year.

Lawyers called these incidents a “flagrant” breach of the High Court Order, which was introduced following the 2021 libel case. Mr Eardley added that the film had been “viewed extensively” on X, stating that it !had received 44 million views on X alone”.

Mr Eardley said: “Because of the nature of the film is to effectively re-run the case that failed at trial, it substantially repeats all the allegations made at trial.”

He added: “It is a continual breach. This material is still out there. He could take it off Twitter if he wanted to.”

“The harm here is that millions of people could see Mr Yaxley-Lennon thumbing his nose at the court. This is not a case about Mr Yaxley-Lennon’s political views.

“It is not even directly a case about freedom of expression. It is a case about the disobedience to a court order, and the undermining of the rule of law that goes with that.”

Throughout the hearing, Robinson could be seen laughing, shaking his head and muttering to himself in the dock. He also looked towards dozens of his supporters in the public gallery and shrugged his shoulders as his sentence was passed down.

It comes after Robinson was taken into custody at Folkstone police station on Friday, October 25 after failing to provide police with his mobile phone pin-code under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He remained in custody over the weekend, missing a protest organised by himself that saw thousands decent on central London with placards that read “Two tier Keir fuelled the riots” and chanted “We want Tommy out”.